To see the madness ​behind the lunacy, ​click on the faces.

Steve Martin

Creative Director

With a degree in astrophysics, our Creative Director really is a rocket scientist. His first job was to plant dynamite in fields and “record what happens”.

He subsequently used his qualification to land jobs as a handyman for a feminist collective and a vegan baker before commencing his design career in Oxford in 1992.

Passionate about almost everything, Steve nevertheless always ends up talking about engines, Macs or food.

Alison Jambert

Communications Director

Not so much the face of Eat as its mouth. Alison does most of our talking, and is always first in line for complimentary dinners and business lunches.

Born in Birmingham but raised in rural England, and still bearing the verbal scars of that upbringing, Alison spent five years at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons followed by a stretch at a PR agency in Hong Kong before arriving in Japan in 1996. She helped launch Eat in 2000 and hasn't paid for lunch since.

Ayako Chujo

President

Eat's chief spent 14 years as an interior designer, working in Tokyo, Shanghai and London. Her career highlights include the design of barrier-free housing for the elderly, and love hotels for the not-so-elderly.

After setting up an interior design firm in 1994 Ayako founded Eat in 2000 and has barely left the office since. She lives by the motto “Beer then wine (or vice versa) and you'll feel fine.”

Mina Amemiya

Account Manager

Modestly describing herself as “boring”, Mina likes books, shoes, the colour pink, The Royal Tenenbaums, animals (especially dogs), roses, cigarettes, Astrud Gilberto, the idea of drinking champagne even though she can't drink it because of an alcohol intolerance, summer, going out to dinner with her friends and drinking tea with milk, J.D. Salinger, people with class — not status-wise but just a nice personality inside, jeans, world peace and cheese. She doesn't like fish or exercise.

Chiemi Suyama

Studio Manager

Tokyo-born Chiemi is our resident troubleshooter — Macs, printers and errant fonts are all kept under her tight control.

Eight years as Art Director of a design agency in sunny San Francisco also gave her the skills needed to keep our design team in check.

She's also known as the office Peter Pan — old enough that we'd give her our seat on the train, but still needs ID to order a beer.

Erik Johansson

Interactive Projects Manager

Erik says he always dreamed of becoming a magician, and once flirted with stardom in a Swedish rock band, but the reason he ended up building websites for Eat can be summed up by lines such as “When I was young I monopolised the computer, hacking Hypercard-stacks that made funny Monty Python sounds,” and “Since I discovered GIF-animation I've studied and worked with the Web most of my waking hours”. That's also the reason his desk faces the wall.

Sayaka Nakagawa

Designer

Quiet and unassuming, Sayaka’s presence is usually characterised by the rustling of snack wrappers and mischievous chuckling when she learns a new slang word in English. There is no food too unappetizing, no cuisine too daunting for this lean eating machine. Her fervor for eating even drove her, once upon a time, to move to a farmhouse just to be able to access food faster than anyone else.

However Sayaka doesn’t spend all of her time grazing peacefully in the pasture – her transformation into a whirling dervish of death at the foosball table is truly terrifying. She also seems to have a penchant for running after large dogs.

Erika Suzuki

Office Manager

Once upon a time there was a girl who decided to go to Australia for a drive. She marveled at the desert stretching all around, the enormous anthills dotting the plains, the kangaroos leaping freely by… it was “a strange world that remains clearly in memory, even now.” The girl herself was not typical either. She was there, after all, to race in the Australia Safari Rally.

Erika has since become a devoted mother and an accountant known for her reliability and trustworthiness. The speediness of her racing days can still be seen in her ability to complete a furikomi transaction in less than a minute, a feat that would leave most people sobbing on the floor.

Carolyn Kim

Editorial Coordinator

Time is so short, and half of it is spent sleeping. If it were physically possible and healthy to do so, Carolyn would stay awake all day and night. Then she could reduce her list of endeavors to accomplish and do them exceptionally, instead of constantly adding more to the list and doing them adequately.

Constantly dwelling on the past and always pondering the future, she relies on archery and mountain climbing to stay grounded in the present. She often wonders what happened to laughter. Perhaps more than anything, Carolyn longs for a world where Fred & Ginger could dance forever, unmarred by the cruelty of time and human folly.

Simon Pitt

Business Manager

Looking at Simon, one is reminded of something, something one can’t quite put one’s finger on immediately. Then, upon further thought, realisation hits: altar boy. Indeed his wide-eyed, pious demeanour and obliging manners must be remnants of his youthful service to the Church.

Leaving those days behind for something more worldly, Simon worked in the finance departments of companies in the U.K. before moving into the airline sector, which may be how he landed in Japan. Today this adept business analyst and marketing strategist still retains the steadfast belief that not only should everyday be looked forward to, diversity is a trait to be valued.

Lisa Salmon

Web Developer

Our token American was a magazine scribe and copywriter for GAP (“Hey, gotta pay the rent,”) before entering the glamorous world of website coding. Her nomadic inclinations have seen her working from San Francisco, Chicago, Costa Rica, Japan and, currently, New Zealand.

On Wednesdays she co-hosts the world's most laid-back funk, soul and hip-hop radio show here.